Escaping from the bottom set: finding a voice for school improvement

The author is the headteacher of a one form entry primary school near London. She describes the improvement journey that brought her school out of the Ofsted category of ‘special measures’ to become ‘outstanding’. Her view is that schools improve most radically when children and staff are encouraged to find a voice to express their learning needs. She argues that ability labelling, whether at an institutional or individual level, does nothing to further the process of school improvement.